Read more
The process of electoral change is accelerating in contemporary democracies, and this book explains why. The emergence of Green parties in the 1980s and recent far right parties, Brexit and Trump's 2016 victory are parts of this overall process.
Political Realignment tracks the evolution of citizen and elite opinions on economic and cultural issues from the 1970s to the 2010s-and the impact of these changes on electoral politics and public policy. Citizen positions on these cleavages have realigned over time, producing a similar realignment in the structure of the party systems to represent these demands. Economic issues remain important, now joined by divisions on cultural issues as a backlash to modernization. Assembling an
unprecedented time series of empirical evidence, this study explains the new forces of elector change in both Europe and the United States.
List of contents
- Introduction
- 1: The Evolution of Political Competition
- Social Structure and Political Cleavages
- 2: Citizens, Issues, and Political Cleavages
- 3: The Social Distribution of Cleavage Positions
- 4: Cleavage Patterns across Nations
- 5: Elites, Issues, and Political Cleavages
- Political Cleavages and Party Alignments
- 6: Placing Parties in the Political Space
- 7: Voters and Parties
- 8: Congruence and Representation
- 9: The American Experience
- Conclusion
- 10: Realignment and Beyond
- Appendices
- A: Issue Questions from the European Election Studies
- B: Citizen Issue Structures by Nation
- C: Identifying Party Positions
- D: Party Cleavage Positions
- E: Party Cleavage Polarization Scores
- F: The Complexity of Measurement
- G: Construction of Economic and Cultural Indices in the United States
About the author
Russell Dalton is Research Professor of Political Science at the Centre for the Study of Democracy at UC Irvine. Dalton has been awarded a Fulbright Research Fellowship, Scholar-in-Residence at the Barbra Streisand Center, German Marshall Fund Research Fellowship, and the POSCO Fellowship at the East West Center in Hawaii. His research focuses on the role of citizens in the political process. Previous publications include The Participation Gap (OUP, 2017), Political Parties and Democratic Linkage: How Parties Organize Democracy (OUP, 2011), and Citizens, Context and Choice: How Context Shapes Citizens' Electoral Choices (OUP, 2011).
Summary
This volume examines how social modernization has changed the framework of political competition for citizens and political parties in affluent democracies, and discusses the electoral and political implications of these trends.
Additional text
This book should be read by scholars interested in learning about the deeper historical, social, and political forces that are triggering tectonic shifts in many governments party systems.
Report
... an extremely innovative approach...brings new perspectives to an important debate in contemporary political science...a fundamental work for anyone wishing to understand the dilemmas faced by democracies in an increasingly complex and pluralized world. Julian Borba, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina
